We’re not always ready to write the story that lives in us. But we can write our way to readiness.
Sometimes a story isn’t ready to be born. We may long to write it but we also dodge it, shrink from it, or avoid writing altogether.
Yet the story continues to nudge us, haunt us, ache for form.
Our stories, particularly our ‘big’ stories, are all in different states of ‘readiness’. Sometimes it’s simply that time needs to pass, grieving or healing needs to happen, perspective needs to be gained, but in all of these instances the story hasn’t fully separated from us yet. We are still woven into it, and it into us.
But what happens if time HAS passed, healing HAS happened, and yet, still, the story hangs back?
Sometimes coming at the story from a side door can help to encourage it into the light. In other words, we can ease our way into a story by writing about something else, something completely different. Something small, relatively insignificant, gently beautiful, something that does not have the weight of My Big Story attached to it. When we move into the flow of story, without an agenda or pressure, we can play, experiment, distract our guarded minds.
And often, wisps of…shhhh…That Other Story begin to emerge. A moment, a glimpse, the tiniest of threads. One small moment opening into the next. Until, gradually, the story begins to unspool itself, one small scene at a time.
Only when we lower our guard can the tender in us begin to emerge.